Ted Talks Speaker Makes Charity Accessible For College Students

Want to change the world? There’s not an app for that…Well, not yet, at least.

Meet Madison Mikhail, a 22-year-old recent graduate of Capital University in Columbus, OH. Mikhail is a young woman who wears many hats: businesswoman, manager, entrepreneur, and Homecoming queen, to name a few.

While her peers spent sleepless nights drinking Red Bull and studying for exams, Mikhail spent her collegiate career creating an organization that she believes will transform the way people across the globe access and donate to charity.

“Everything in my life is accessible in one place. We have hubs that keep us updated with everything — friends, sports, news events, crafting and dating. I can see what the girl in my bio class had for lunch, but if I want to know the world’s needs, I have to search for that information,” Mikhail said in a recent Ted Talk.

In 2014, hubs of information are available everywhere -– but if a person wants to get involved with service, donations or information about the world’s needs, the information they are met with is overwhelming and many times, unreliable.

“What Facebook is for friends and ESPN is for sports, ONELIFE is for charity. When you don’t know where to start with charity, we want to be there,” Mikhail said.

ONELIFE is a nonprofit organization with a fully functioning website that Mikhail hopes will connect people with charities. But the road to getting ONELIFE off the ground has been a tumultuous one.

“In middle school, I remember sitting in a classroom and we were watching a video on global poverty. I looked around and no one seemed to care. It broke my heart,” Mikhail said.

Mikhail spent the next several years sketching her idea on paper, not quite sure where the organization could go. Finally, she realized that action, not just the presentation information, was pertinent to get people involved with charity.

“The idea wasn’t fully there until I realized I should give people a way to help. The idea of an aggregate of information developed in the last few years,” Mikhail said.

And so the process began. At 18, Mikhail walked into a lawyer’s office and made an appointment.